Crap Towns / Gloucestershire / Cirencester
Cirencester
36/100Crap Score
631st crappest of 984 towns, and 9th in Gloucestershire. Higher scores are crapper.
Have your say
Crap Town of the Year 2026/27
See the raceThe public vote. It's separate from the Crap Score, and it closes on 31 December 2027.
Letters from the locals
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agree it's crap have defended it
Posh, pricey and a bit rowdy.
Roman ruins, wool money, daylight robbery parking, and more aggro than you'd expect.
Cirencester calls itself the Capital of the Cotswolds and charges like it. Parking costs a bomb, the shops are emptying and they've been begging for a cinema for years. What's left is charity shops, over five times the typical town's per head, and hairdressers. It's also got more anti-social behaviour than a posh Cotswold town should.
The last bus home is at 8.36pm, so you couldn't get home from the cinema even if they built one. The Cotswold council area has 1.7 times England's share of homes stood empty, which is a lot of dark windows for somewhere this pricey. Nobody can agree how to say the name, so everyone just says Ciren and gets on with it.
What the score is made of
Ten ingredients, each marked out of 100. Higher is crapper.
Cirencester's 93 for broadband means it's crapper than 93% of towns.
- Broadband93/10019.2% of premises can't get gigabit, January 2026, and 27.8% across the Cotswold council area
- Anti-social behaviour85/10023.7 per 1,000 people a year, September 2023 to August 2026
- Fly-tipping59/10011.0 incidents per 1,000 people a year, Cotswold council area, 2022-23 to 2024-25
- Rain55/100131 days of rain a year, at least 1 mm, 1991 to 2020 average
- Serious road collisions49/1002.4 per 10,000 people a year, fatal and serious, 2021 to 2025
- Criminal damage and arson28/1005.5 per 1,000 people a year, September 2023 to August 2026
- Air pollution24/1005.7 µg/m³ of nitrogen dioxide and 6.3 of fine particles, 2024 average
- Deliberate fires9/1002.2 per 10,000 people a year, April 2023 to March 2026
- Food hygiene5/1000.6% rated 0 to 2, of the 174 food businesses with a rating
- Sewage spills2/1000.0 spill hours per 10,000 people a year, storm overflows within 1 km, 2023 to 2025
| Pos | Town | Score |
|---|---|---|
| 5 | Stroud | 44 |
| In danger of becoming nice from here down.6 | Kingswood and Fishponds | 39 |
| 7 | Tewkesbury | 38 |
| 8 | Quedgeley and Hardwicke | 37 |
| 9 | Cirencester | 36 |
| 10 | Brockworth | 31 |
| 11 | Yate | 31 |
| 12 | Stoke Gifford | 30 |
| 13 | Churchdown | 24 |
Below the dashed line: in danger of becoming nice.
Cirencester by numbers
Thinking of moving here? Don't say we didn't warn you.
Crime, muck and dodgy water
- 75.7 crimes per 1,000 people a year (September 2023 to August 2026) About the same: About the same as the typical town's 76.2
- 1,671 reports of potholes and bad road surfaces on FixMyStreet, the most reported problem in the year to October 2026 Worse: 943 per 10,000 people, 277.4x the typical town's 3.4
What's left on the high street
- 13 pubs, 22 hairdressers, 13 charity shops, 2 bookmakers, 1 vape shop, 5 banks, 2 Greggs on the map here as of 1 October 2026
- 0.0% of takeaways rated 0 to 2 for hygiene (0 of 15) Better: Against the typical town's 4.0%
- 1 bank branch closure announced since 2022 Worse: 5.6 per 100,000 people, 1.6x the typical town's 3.4
- 13 public toilets on the map (October 2026) Better: 7.3 per 10,000 people, 4.6x the typical town's 1.6
- 4 public swimming pools open Better: 2.3 per 10,000 people, 3.3x the typical English town's 0.7
- 1 place on England's Heritage at Risk register
Getting about, getting online, getting rained on
- 8.36pm last bus out on a Wednesday Worse: Earlier than the typical town's 12.14am
- 1.5% of premises can't get superfast broadband (January 2026) Worse: 3x the typical town's 0.5%
- 12.9% live more than 400 metres from a park or play space Better: 17% lower than the typical town's 15.5%
- 1,571 hours of sunshine a year (1991 to 2020 average) About the same: About the same as the typical town's 1,532
Cotswold council
- £2,392 Band D council tax (2026-27) About the same: The same as the English average
- 26% of Gloucestershire County Council's unclassified roads should have been considered for maintenance (2025-26) Worse: 1.6x England's 16%
- 1 ombudsman complaint upheld against the council in 2025-26
- More on the council
Have a crap-off
Cirencester against your mate's town, and a match ticket to rub it in.
- ?Fly-tippingper 1,000, council area?
- ?Anti-social behaviourper 1,000 people?
- ?Serious road crashesper 10,000 people?
- ?Sewage spillshours per 10,000 people?
- ?Food hygienerated poor?
- ?Criminal damageper 1,000 people?
- ?Dirty airµg/m³?
- ?No gigabitof premises can't get it?
- ?Deliberate firesper 10,000 people?
- ?Raindays a year?
Ten ingredients. One verdict. Who's crapper? The higher Crap Score takes it.